


Step By Step. Inch By Inch

by briqhtliqhts



Series: Snakes and Ladders [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, billy tries to be a decent human being rather than a piece of shit, yet another redemption arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 18:47:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13059972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briqhtliqhts/pseuds/briqhtliqhts
Summary: "How do you forget something like almost running kids over?!"In which Max won't shut up and Billy wants his life to be just that little bit easier. Apologies aren't that difficult, right?





	Step By Step. Inch By Inch

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is going to be the start of a little series cause I have a few ideas for one shots. This is just something that came to me whilst writing my english essay cause Harringrove is always on the brain :P
> 
> Prompts and ideas can be sent to dacrepls on tumblr!

“Apologise to them. All of them.” 

“Are you fucking serious? I don’t even  _ talk  _ to any of them after that bullshit syringe stunt you pulled on me. Fuck, I didn’t even do anything to most of them.”

They’d been in this argument for what felt like hours. All he’d tried to do was make up for the shit that he’d pulled on her over the years that they’d been stuck together. After all of his pride had been stolen from him that night at the Byers’ house, he’d genuinely been trying to make an effort with her. The better they got on, the easier his life was and the less his dad was breathing down his neck telling him about how he lacked any responsibility along with the myriad of other insults he often had locked away. 

The real issue was that he was useless when it came to making it up to her. He’d replaced the skateboard, he’d offered to drive her places, hell he’d even offered to take her out for food or to the arcade without her little band of nerds.

“You tried to hit them with your car, Billy! That’s  _ something. _ ” Well fuck. He’d forgot about that one. He would never actually hit them but he needed to prove a point and he’d needed Max to listen. It worked for the most part. “How could you forget something like that?!”

“Alright, alright,” he groaned, moving to the door that led to the backyard so that he could have a smoke.  _ No smoking in the house:  _ a rule that had been implemented a while ago. “I’ll work on it, okay? Can you just calm the fuck down?”

Rather than giving her the time to respond, he slammed the door shut behind him to keep the hot air in the house. The cold was coming quicker than anticipated and Billy really wasn’t ready to face the Hawkins Winter. He was even less ready to face the storm that Neil would send his way if he left the door open for too long and then let the cold and cigarette smoke into the house.

He was pretty sure that he heard and angry groan coming from inside of the house, followed by the sounds of stomping as Max stormed off to her room. It was a start, at least. It had been the first conversation that they’d had in awhile, or at least the first conversation that they’d had that lasted more than five seconds. 

As he smoked, he thought over the list of people that he needed to apologise to, already regretting the conversation that they’d had. There was no taking it back now. He had to actually make an effort.

Sinclair

Henderson

Wheeler

Byers

Harrington

Ugh, Harrington. At least the four kids could just be done in one fell swoop. Sinclair may need a little bit more effort than the other three but he could corral them into one area the next time he dropped Max off at the arcade. Harrington, though, was a whole other barrel of fish. 

He’d built up so much animosity between them that an apology for him was going to be a lot more difficult. One option was that he was just honest: explain that he hadn’t really meant to give Steve the beat down that he had given him all those months ago, that he was just a casualty of the war that was the Hargrove household. He wasn’t a bitch though. He wasn’t going to throw a victim complex around just so Steve had to accept his apology. Billy could have easily done something else rather than beat the guy down but that was what had happened and that was what he had to deal with. The other option was that he just came out and said that he’d fucked up and offer him no other explanation. Neither of them were going to work well and he knew that he was going to be on his knees for a while getting that guy to forgive him but if that was what he had to do then so be it. He was never one to turn down a challenge.

******

Billy looked towards the entrance of the arcade through the Camaro window, sighing when he saw the geek squad loitering out the front. He really wasn’t feeling apologising, not today, probably not ever, but the expectant look from Max told him everything he needed to know.

“Fucking kids, I swear to God,” he grumbled as he threw the door to his car open, pulling himself out. He threw the cigarette stub to the ground as he shut the door, psyching himself up for the bullshit he was about to throw at the kids.

Max led the way over and he found it incredibly difficult to not smirk at the fact that all four of the boys looked about ready to piss themselves.

Nope. Couldn’t think like that.

“What’s he doing here?” Billy couldn’t even bring himself to pretend he was shocked by the question. Maybe if it had came from the weird kid, Byers(?), then he would have been confused but Sinclair did have every right to want nothing to do with him.

“He’s here to apologise. Right, Billy?” Max was looking at him expectantly, though the look on her face made it look like she was just  _ waiting  _ for him to screw up, waiting for an excuse to prove that he wasn’t really trying and that he really didn’t care about making it up to her.

“Hm? Yeah. Yeah. I want to- uhh.” This was way harder than he thought. The idea of  _ actually  _ apologising to these kids after all the shit that he’d had to go through because of them running away with Harrington was enough to make his stomach turn. He had to swallow his pride. The ends justifies the means or something, right? Was that what the saying was? 

“I’m sorry alright? I’m sorry for calling you nerds ‘nerds’ and for that time that I almost but wasn’t really going to run you over and I’m sorry for turning up at your door, threatening to hurt Sinclair before beating up your dumb babysitter - though he really deserved that for lying to me if I’m being honest. Also I wasn’t actually going to hurt a kid I’m not a monster, I’m just a piece of shit.”  And shit he was getting off topic. Hey, at least he was taking ‘responsibility’. Neil would be so proud. Why was he doing this again? Oh yeah. Max.

“It’s a start.”

He couldn’t help but roll his eyes when he heard Wheeler speak up. That really wasn’t the one that he wanted the response form. Sure, he was clearly the leader of the little nerd herd but considering he needed Sinclair’s approval to really get anywhere with this shit. That fact alone was the reason that he kept his eyes locked on the boy in question rather than turning to look at his friend. He raised an eyebrow expectantly to see whether he was going to get the same response from him.

“Yeah.. what Mike said.”

“Great. Glad we have this chat. Can I leave now?” Billy turned to look at her sister who had an unreadable expression on her face. At least she wasn’t mad. “I’ll be back for you at 9. Don’t be fucking around.”

Four apologies taken down in one, now that's what he called ‘efficiency’.

*****

Harrington was a whole other issue in itself. 

Billy knew that he would have to make an effort. If he wanted to get anywhere with Max, with making his life a little easier, then he knew that he’d have to apologise. There was just so much that he had to figure out.

He didn’t want to give Steve an explanation of why he did it. He didn’t want to explain that the reason he gave Steve such a beating was because he was  _ there  _ and Billy just wanted to have control over a situation for five minutes. But, not giving him an explanation meant that there wasn’t much to his apology. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. 

It didn’t help that Max was on his case every five minutes. “Have you apologised to Steve yet?” “You promised you’d make an effort” “Why are you being so stubborn about this?” “You’re such an ass. Just apologise.”

It never ended. 

He’d been making an effort to try and fix things. It wasn’t his fault that they never seemed to be stuck together. 

The fact that they constantly kept missing each other should have been enough of a sign to give up. They had basketball together, they constantly had to hang around the arcade to pick up the kids, or travel to one of their houses to collect them but there was never enough time to actually attempt a conversation. It became pretty obvious pretty quickly that Harrington was avoiding him. Not that he could really blame him, he’d avoid himself if he had the option.

Max’s complaints got real annoying real quick and he decided that the next time he had to turn up to some stupid geek squad extravaganza that he was going to corner Steve, say what he needed to say, and get it over and done with. If it meant that he’d have just a few moments of peace in his life he’d fucking take it.

Shockingly enough, it didn’t take too long and, a few days after he made his decision, he found himself pulling up outside of the Wheeler’s house, the familiar brown BMW parked up against the sidewalk. 

That gave him a little boost of confidence, at least. If they were both waiting around for the kids to finish then he had no other choice but to deal with Billy, whether he wanted to or not. Score one for Billy.

He slowly made his way up to the door, ringing the doorbell as he waited for Mrs. Wheeler to answer the door. He really needed to cool it on the obnoxious flirting with the woman, at least for tonight. She just made it so easy though, the way that she got flustered and allowed Billy to wrap her around his little finger. It was manipulative as fuck but she was enjoying the attention so there was nothing to worry about, right?

“Oh- Billy, you’re a little early.” 

When she appeared in the doorway, Billy pulled on his most charming grin and dropped his voice a couple of octaves, leaning against the door frame as he spoke, “Yeah… sorry about that, Mrs. Wheeler. You don’t mind if I wait around inside, right?” 

“I- Oh. No, no. Come on inside, Steve is already in the kitchen.” 

Bingo.

After a quick thank you, he made his way through the home, towards the kitchen. He was immediately met by the sight of Steve who was leaning against the kitchen counter, stuffing his face with the cookies that Karen seemed to always have lying around.

“Harrington,” he nodded.

Billy watched as the other stopped chewing and turned to properly look at him, his frame becoming significantly tenser once he had entered the room. Deep down he was glad that he could still have that effect on someone that had seen him have his ass handed to him. It was the little things that really mattered.

“Hargrove. Didn’t think I’d see you.”

“Max is here and I gotta be a responsible older step-brother so… here I am.” He explained with a shrug of his shoulders, reaching to steal one of the cookies.

There wasn’t much to be said after that and the two of them were left stood in awkward silence, the only noise in the kitchen was when one of them took another bite of their cookie or when whatever game the nerd herd were playing got a little bit more exciting. 

Billy was just trying to psych himself up for this apology but the silence really wasn’t helping him in anyway.

“Listen, Harrington, I just wanted to… y’know… apologise for the thing,” he gestured to the guy’s face before he was shoving his hands back into his pockets, starting pointedly at the floor rather than looking up at him. If he looked at him then it was just going to be harder for him to get this dumb shit out.

The silence dragged on for a couple of seconds and Billy was ready to carry on and explain himself - because apparently that was what it was going to take - but Steve was cutting in first.

“It’s whatever.”

It definitely wasn’t the response he was expecting. He didn’t even know whether it was the response that he wanted from the other. He was ready to grovel, to explain, to let his heart bleed just for the guy to say he would consider forgiving him but Harrington was just… rolling over and giving him the easy win.

“What do you mean ‘it’s whatever’? I gave you a concussion, I could have killed you if Max hadn’t grabbed the- well you know.” He cut himself off because he didn’t need anyone knowing that his step-sister had attacked him with a syringe and drugged him, especially not Karen Wheeler. If Mike was anything to go by then he was sure the woman was good at overreacting to everything.

“You said you’re sorry. What else can you say? It’s not like you can take it back or anything is it?”

“Well… I- I guess not but I just thought it would be… harder than that.”

“Dustin mentioned that you apologised to them the other week. Said that I should expect one too. Wasn’t really expecting one after you started avoiding me.”

_ Avoiding him?  _ What the fuck was this guy on?

“Woah. Now listen, I wasn’t avoiding you, Harrington. If anything you were avoiding me. Every time I tried to talk to you, you suddenly disappeared.”

“I’m not going to argue with you, Billy. I’m just telling you what I thought. Why are you even apologising anyway? You’re not the kind of guy that does remorse. What’s your game plan?”

“I do actually feel shitty for pulling that stunt, you know?” It was something that needed to be pointed out, especially after how weak the apology actually was, “Shouldn’t have let shit get the better of me. But I did and now I’m trying to be a better person - and let me tell you, it’s fucking exhausting.”

That, at least, pulled a laugh from Harrington. It was quiet and he was definitely trying to hide it but it was there which meant that Billy was doing something right.

“Well… I guess I look forward to seeing how exactly Billy Hargrove becomes a good person.”

If it was anyone else that had said it he would have brushed it off as if it was nothing. Coming from Steve, though? That hurt a little bit more. Harrington was the guy that apparently saw the good in everybody and, yeah, he knew that he didn’t really deserve anyone being optimistic about him becoming a better person but it would have been nice for him to have at least pretended. 

He quickly composed himself, pulling his standard smirk on his face whilst reaching around the other to grab another cookie.

“You and me both, Pretty Boy. You and me both.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know it wasn't hella Harringrove but it'll get there eventually? Maybe? Hopefully?
> 
> Any and all feedback is appreciated! Thank you for reading my first piece in the fandom.
> 
> hmu @ zeathhussar on tumblr <3


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